 Forty one of the "Monarch"'s passengers decided to remain at Akaroa.Even though the French were far outnumbered by the British, Akaroa still had a pleasantly foreign air when the first of the Canterbury Association's settlers visited it in 1851, finding in its long-settled look and in its natural beauty of its surroundings a delightful contrast to the bleak hills of Lyttelton and the swamp wastes of Christchurch.The first colonists or settlers sent by the Canterbury Association arrived in December 1850 on the ship "Charlotte Jane".